


Quamdiu Vos Diligunt Me

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Rating May Change, Tony Stark Lives, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-12 19:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19951441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There is a universe quite different from ours. Where Tony Stark lives, at the cost of the rest of the world. Lost, alone, broken, he finds his way back to where he belongs: with his family.





	1. What To Do When You're All Alone?

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have any impulse control. That's the only excuse I have for this.
> 
> The original prompt: https://itismarvelicious.tumblr.com/post/185117322072/somewhere-in-this-new-mcu-theres-a-universe-where

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is Latin for As Long As You Love Me.

No one will never know how or what changed that made this universe so different from the one we know.

* * *

Pepper Potts found herself falling to her knees in bedroom, as her fingers turned to dust, what was left of her hands pressed to her stomach, to the child she knew she was carrying. She barely had time to breathe out a name as she faded away into nothing. The sound of the name seemed to linger long after she was gone, spinning through the air in search of the recipient. “Tony...”

Twenty two days later, Tony Stark recorded a last message on a spaceship, for a woman he could only hope was still alive to hear it, not yet knowing she wasn’t.

When he arrived on earth, it wasn’t weakness that made him collapse, nor was it his rage at a certain Captain. Rather, it was the realization that not only had he lost his surrogate son, he’d also lost the only woman he’d ever loved and, with her, all the hopes of the family he’d one day thought he would have.

Five years later, Bruce Banner, the Hulk, slipped on the metal gauntlet with Tony’s help, the hated stones gleaming spitefully in their slots. Tony stared at them, palms cold and sweating with anticipation. _Hold on, Pep, Peter, just hold on, please, please, let this work, please, please, please, please, ple-_

But the atmosphere was torn apart seconds before Bruce could snap his fingers. 

Thanos had arrived.

They fought. Of course, they fought. They’d been the ones left alive and they’d grieved too much and too many, to do anything but battle with all their strength, even if they were only a handful of semi-professional heroes.

It was no surprise that, in the end, it wasn’t enough.

Bleeding and broken, Tony refused to close his eyes, refused to go peacefully. He glared at the Titan with all the rage, all the fury he could muster. 

And yet, he couldn’t help but be a little relieved.

Because, he hadn’t saved the world, hadn’t even avenged it like he’d promised Loki so many years ago, but at least he would be dying with it. At least, he wouldn’t be the one left behind to regret. 

_Looks like I'm coming to you, Pepper._

Thanos snapped his fingers. “I am inevitable,” he crowed.

_You're a fucking problem, is what you are. And no longer mine to deal with it._

* * *

This universe is different from ours in more ways than one. This one is cruel.

* * *

As Tony watched his teammates, his friends break down into their bare molecules, he waited. With ever passing second that he didn’t follow them, his heart sank and desperation rose in its place, screaming and kicking from inside his chest.

“I'm not going to kill _you_ ,” Thanos murmured. “After all the trouble you’ve given me? You’ll only wish for me to kill you.”

Tony, defiant, as ever, grinned with bloodstained teeth. “Me? Trouble?” He mocked. “All I did was scratch your face, you purple bastard.”

“No God is meant to be seen bleeding,” he said quietly and Tony wanted to scream because he’d heard something similar before. 

_If you can make god bleed, then people will cease to believe in him._

His life was a cosmic joke, Tony decided, if everything even before New York had been leading up to this moment. _IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME? YOU WANT ME TO BEG? TO GIVE UP? FAT CHANCE! GO SUCK IT, YOU STUPID FATES, OR NORNS OR WHATEVER!_

Alone, surrounded by only enemies, Tony struggled fruitlessly as Thanos lifted him up, one hand wrapping around his torso with ease.

“I've never been one to keep spoils of war,” he mused. “But you’ll make a nice trophy. And, just as insurance...” He picked a blade from the ground. It’s edge shone in the dim light and Tony watched it with wary eyes, mouth tight to hold back a scream as it swung through the air.

* * *

In our universe, a little ahead in time, Thanos had arrived mere minutes later and, at the very end, a different pair of fingers had snapped, then fallen lifeless over a metal chest, still in the gentle grip of a lover’s hand.

“Hey, Pep.”

“You can rest now. We’re gonna be fine.”

No one had heard the sound like tearing paper, or the sound like popping large bubbles.

No one had felt the invisible holes come into existence, or the sudden strain on the multiverse as the very fabric of reality tried to mend itself.

* * *

Time ceased to lose meaning for Tony. Seconds, minutes, an hour; hell, someone could have told him it had been a year and he wouldn’t really have been surprised.

All he was aware of was the searing pain in his right hand as Thanos slowly, almost lovingly, ruined it with his blade, using the stones one by one to make flames, then ice, then minuscule needless that stabbed into his knuckles.

When it was over, he was dropped to the ground.

Tony refused to look at his hand, even as he wrestled the pain under control, taking advantage of the reprieve from the torture. Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted Thanos taking the gauntlet off, setting it firmly to the side. Of course, Tony realized. He focused hazily on the large purple hand, eyeing the scorched skin. The gauntlet had hurt him. Hurt him enough that he’d think again before putting it on once more.

Breathing hard, he glared at Thanos, trying to think past the screaming nerves. His mind, still racing as fast as it always had, did the calculations. He had enough nanoparticles to achieve flight. Thanos couldn’t fly. If Tony acted fast enough, he could grab that gauntlet and fly away. The army was scrambled, milling about, enjoying the spoils of war, as Thanos had put it. Tony would have the element of surprise, a head start. He could... He could... Well, he wasn’t sure what, but he needed to get that gauntlet. He wasn’t sure what he would do with it, what he _could_ do with it, but first things first. That was all he could focus on. _Get the gauntlet_.

Gritting his teeth, shoving the pain to the back of his mind, Tony moved. He shifted to a crouch, grateful that Thanos was more occupied with his own hand and the evil Nebula.

He took a deep breath, steadying himself. The nanoparticles slid over his body covering him in the thinnest layer of armour possible, leaving the abundance for the flight power. The gauntlet was barely a yard away.

_One. Two. Three. GO!_

Tony kicked off the ground. With years of expertise in crazy flying under his belt, he zoomed straight towards the gauntlet. Grabbing it in one hand, surrounded by shocked yells and furious screams, he swooped up into the air. The air whistled, making it hard to breathe. The gory scenery under him disappeared in moments and soon he was flying over the cities, over the Tower, over the Statue Of Liberty. 

He refused to think about how he was the only human being left on the planet. How the half of the population that had been spared the first time around had joined their loved ones. And he’d been left behind. Again. _Sorry, Pepper._

Tony flew. He couldn’t afford to stop. Not when he was sure he could feel the air moving behind him with the force of his enraged pursuers. He pushed the armour to go faster, faster, _faster_... 

And then something changed.

His vision flashed back and white, the armour spinning out of his control. And then he hit the ground, rolling on cement until he hit his head on a barrier.

His vision went back to normal, but blurred. The armour, as thin as he’d spread it, hadn’t been able to protect him much from the force of the ground. Head swimming with a concussion, the gauntlet clutched to his chest, one hand reduced to a stump, he blinked warily at the oddly familiar blur that had appeared in front of him.  
Was someone calling him? _Pepper?_

He fainted.

* * *

His universe had been a cruel one.

Maybe ours had decided to be kinder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I'm gonna manage all this!!! I still have the Rare Pairs Bingo to finish, countless plot bunnies, and three WIP's, and here I am adding a fourth one to the mix.
> 
> Somebody stop me!!!


	2. Brave New World

Stephen stared at the man lying on the bed. 

When he’d felt the sudden shockwave through the fabric of reality, followed by the very loud scream and small explosion that had prompted him to run outside, the last thing he’d expected to see was a badly damaged Iron Man suit. For a wild second, he’d wondered if it was a rogue suit that had somehow malfunctioned. Then the suit had rolled over, revealing a smoking Infinity Gauntlet, complete with all six stones and a very much alive Tony Stark.

The man himself was unconscious and had been running a very high fever for 18 hours now. 

Stephen had carefully removed the gauntlet, disengaged the suit and the storage unit on his chest with his magic, and patched up his butchered arm as best as he could. There was no way to regrow the whole thing, but he could at least make sure it healed perfectly.

So now, in addition to the stirred up guilt he felt, the dilemma was this: how and why had this Tony Stark come into their universe, and should Stephen tell anybody else?

“Ungh.”

The groan of pain jolted him from his thoughts. Straightening in his seat, he summoned a glass of water on the bedside table as he lay a hand on Tony’s shoulder, hoping the fluttering eyelids meant that he was about to wake up.

Evidently, that was not a good idea, because a split second later, Tony jerked upright, his fingers clamping tightly around Stephen’s scarred wrist in an instinctual response to a perceived attack, making him gasp as pain shot through his nerves.

“Dr Strange?” Tony rasped, letting go in an instant. “Shit, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to- hold on.”

Wrenching the pain under control, Stephen watched as Tony’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. 

“Where am I and who are you?” He asked in a low voice.

“I'm Dr Strange, as you just said.” Stephen kept his voice as even as possible. “You can call me Stephen. You are currently in the New York Sanctuary.”

Tony scoffed. “Yeah, how about a lie that actually sells? Stephen Strange died five years ago. Along with... With... With half of the universe.”

Okay, so Thanos had been in the other universe as well; he could work with that. “I assume you’re referring to a Titan named Thanos?” Stephen asked. “He collected all the six Infinity Stones? Put them in a gauntlet and snapped his fingers?”

Tony tensed further as he spoke. “Yes. How do you know that?”

“Because,” he said softly, because this was where it got a little tricky. “Because we had him in our universe too.”

He saw the second realization struck Tony; his eyes lit up with a dozen emotions, all of them warring for dominance. “ _Your_ universe?” He asked in a whisper. “You mean... There’s a _multiverse_?” For a brief time, the scientist in him had won out.

“Yes, there is.” Stephen nodded, enjoying the chance to shock Tony Stark into speechlessness. “Usually, they’re only accessible to us magicians, but the second, and then third, Snap in our world, must have opened up some sort of rift. Obviously, something similar happened in your world. The two rifts aligned, and somehow, through great coincidence, you went right through them.”

Tony had a little frown now. “Wait. What do you mean, _second and third_ Snap?”

This time, Stephen felt a frown pulling at his own brows. “Well, after the Avengers gathered all six stones during their _Time Heist_...” His voice sank into derision; he’d hated that term. “Bruce Banner snapped the gauntlet that you- well, our version of you- made, to bring everyone who’d been Dusted back.”

Tony stared at him. “You mean... He was able to do it? Bruce brought them back?”

“Ye-es,” he dragged out the word. “Didn’t he in your world?”

His face drawn, he shook his head. “We did do the Time Heist, but Thanos arrived with an army just seconds before Bruce could snap his fingers. Brought the whole building down. We lost the gauntlet for a while and in any case, we were just nine super powered people up against the armies of space. It was a massacre. At the end of it, Thanos...” He took a deep breath. “He said there was no way we would accept a new world if we remembered the old one. So instead, he would kill off the remaining half too. And he did just that.” His voice shook and Stephen itched to comfort him somehow. “He snapped his fingers and they all turned to dust. Right in front of me.”

“He kept you alive as a trophy,” Stephen spoke in horrified realization.

Tony nodded, eyes hard and unblinking. “And it all happened just... Well, how long have I been out?”

“18 hours.”

“Just 18 hours ago then.”

Stephen took a deep breath. “Okay, well, Thanos arrived a few minutes later here. The other sorcerers and I arrived with reinforcements soon enough. Still, it was quite an even match until you acquired the Gauntlet and snapped it yourself. It turned the army to dust, along with Thanos himself.”

Tony nodded, listless.

“What I don’t understand,” he went on, puzzled. “Is how everything went wrong in your world. How did _I_ go wrong?”

Tony frowned lightly.

“I mean I looked through the futures, didn’t I? I chose the timeline in which we all won.”

“You didn’t look through anything,” Tony told him. “We arrived on Titan, met up with a bunch of jackasses calling themselves Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos showed up before we had a half a plan. We fought for some time. He pretty much yanked the necklace from you and then disappeared, leaving us behind.”

“That explains it,” Stephen muttered in understanding. “Well, here, I saw what you would need to sacrifice, and I figured I’d give you a few years of happiness. So to set it in motion, I... Well, I gave up the Time Stone in exchange for your life.”

Tony blinked. “There's a lot to unpack there, but let’s go with _few years of happiness_. What the hell do you mean by that, Harry Potter?” There was a sudden rage in his voice now. “Those five years were the worst of my life. Not only was half the universe gone, including Peter, a literal kid, but also Pepper, the only woman I’ve ever loved. Rhodes was there too, but he needed to be War Machine. Pepper was the only one who would have stayed with me, who would have made it all just a little more bearable and _she was gone_.”

Tears were glinting in his eyes and Stephen could barely meet is gaze.

“You were the one who died here,” he said slowly. “When you snapped the Gauntlet, the energy killed you, almost a year ago now. When I saw it all on Titan, I figured the least I could do was give you the life you deserve and had always wanted. So, the future I chose- I lied when I said it was the only way, you would never have accepted it otherwise- I chose it because it was the one where Pepper survived.”

For a few seconds, Tony remained silent. It was like his brain had completely short-circuited, like he was just figuring out what the implications were of a universe where everything was just that little bit different.

“She’s alive,” he whispered hotly. “She... Pepper is... She’s _alive_!”

“Yeah,” Stephen affirmed softly. “Alive and well. And still missing you.”

“I... I have to... I...,” He stammered for a few seconds, then his face clouded over. “I can’t see her.”

Stephen frowned. “Why not?”

“It's been a year, you said,” he reminded. “She... She’ll have moved on. She’ll have started to get over it. I can’t... Even if she’s not, you know, well, seeing anyone else, I can’t just drag her back down.”

The sorcerer resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Did you hear me when I said she still misses you? Because she does. And she isn’t seeing anyone else. It would have been all over the news for one thing. And I’ve been keeping an eye on them in any case.” He very carefully didn’t mention that he actually visited Morgan every now and then. Best he learn about his daughter from Pepper herself. “I'm just saying,” he continued. “It might be good for you to see her once.”

He could almost see Tony warring with himself: half of him wanting to do the right thing, the other half inherently human and longing.

“Okay,” he said quietly, his shoulders slumping in defeat even as his eyes lit up. “Okay.”

* * *

“Pepper Potts speaking,” Pepper muttered into the phone.

“ _Pepper, it’s Stephen here_.”

She only just managed not to flinch. “Yes,” she answered, only a little stiffly. Just because she liked the man didn't mean she wanted to be around him or have a conversation. Usually, he was quite considering of this, always staying out of her way on the few occasions he visited Morgan.

“ _I was hoping you could come over to the Sanctum?_ ” The former doctor asked politely. " _There's something we need to talk about.”_

Pepper could only wonder. “I'll be there in the afternoon.”

“ _See you then. Goodbye_.”

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr: bad-days-and-beautiful-nights


End file.
